By connecting previously siloed food and beverage processes, the company’s comprehensive smart process and control systems create a single view of operations, delivering seamless communications across people, data and assets. The resulting improvements in real-time collaboration and continuous process optimisation will help to enhance asset utilisation, increase yield, drive workforce productivity, optimise resource management and help to mitigate security risks.

New to this year’s event is the Rockwell Automation ThinManager technology, which routes production information to a thin client device to give workers access to the data that’s relevant to them. On the booth, visitors will use a Microsoft Hololens mixed-reality headset to walk around a virtual cookie plant and see information that changes based on where they look.

Also new is Project Scio, which will help users to make decisions when and where they matter. Project Scio opens up access to ad-hoc analytics and performs advanced analysis by pulling structured and unstructured data from virtually any existing source in an enterprise. It can also intelligently fuse related data, delivering analytics in intuitive dashboards that users can share and view. Users can perform self-serve drill downs too, to make better decisions, reducing the time to value.

The Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk Craft Brew suite will also be demonstrated on the booth. This new dedicated software will let craft brewers retain the flexibility and uniqueness they need to innovate, while at the same time, enhancing productivity, lowering costs, maintaining quality and improving efficiency.

In addition to these new tools, Rockwell Automation will showcase many other elements of its food and beverage industry offerings, including: the innovative and highly flexible Independent Cart technology; Rockwell Software CPGSuite, a scalable MES/performance management system; its PlantPAx process management system; and its popular FactoryTalk Batch software. Networking is covered by its Connected Services and industrial security offerings; and visitors will also gain an understanding of its DCS migration and modernisation systems, which can elevate legacy solutions into the Industrie 4.0 workspace.